eLabs & Community Events
An Introduction to the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition Toolkit
March 18, 2026 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm Eastern Time
On March 18 at 1:00 PM EDT, eLabs will host a webinar that invites researchers to explore questions around the environmental impact of digital humanities work. The session draws on the approaches and resources developed by the Digital Humanities Climate Coalition (DHCC), a collaborative and cross-institutional initiative focused on understanding and minimizing the environmental impact of digital humanities research. Among their resources is a toolkit designed to help individuals and organizations make informed digital choices and support the development of more sustainable research projects.
Led by Christopher Ohge, eLabs advisory board member and a member of the DHCC, this webinar will provide guidance on how to implement the toolkit in research projects. The session will open with an introduction of the DHCC, providing background and context on the activities the coalition has supported in universities, libraries, and archives. It will then touch upon several areas in the toolkit, including:
- Minimal Computing: explores how we can reduce the carbon footprint of our digital practices.
- Maximal Computing: examines computationally intensive digital tools such as Machine Learning, and offers perspectives on when these might be justifiable.
- Grant Writing: includes recommendations on designing (or redesigning) research projects, including Data Management Plans.
- Working Practices: offers guidance on reducing energy consumption in your day-to-day working life, including communication and shared working, travel, and publishing and preserving data.
- Advocating within your Institution: offers tips on how to go beyond individual or project-level sustainability.
The toolkit is designed to encourage researchers to adopt climate-responsible research practices. It aims to empower them to make climate-friendly technological decisions, and to support researchers who lack the practical knowledge about how to devise greener initiatives. As such, the toolkit (and this webinar) aims to raise awareness and provide practical tips on planning and management of one’s research infrastructure and data. Staff members, students and fellows will learn how to approach and improve their research design and implementation, as well as digital work more broadly.
About the Presenter(s)
Christopher Ohge is Senior Lecturer in Digital Approaches to Literature at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. He has also served as a core faculty member for eLaboratories, working on the Fundamentals of Editing courses (formerly known as the Institute for Editing Historical Documents, or “Camp Edit”). Since 2018 he has also taught editing and book history courses on the London Rare Books School. He serves as the Associate Director of the Melville Electronic Library and an Associate Editor for Melville’s Marginalia Online. Before moving to London, he served as an associate editor at the Mark Twain Papers & Project at the University of California, Berkeley. He has held postdoctoral fellowships and taught at the University of Maine, Boston University, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. The author of the recent book Publishing Scholarly Editions: Archives, Computing, and Experience (Cambridge University Press, 2021), he has also published work in Textual Cultures, Scholarly Editing, Essays in Criticism, American Literary History, Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies, and in several edited collections.
